I thought about how easy it would be to destroy all of that.
Ava hadn’t brought up telling Drew since he and Harper had broken up. He was working on a plan, but even after her visit with him, she hadn’t made any mention of telling him about us.
Maybe she’d realized what I was starting to suspect—that some secrets were better left buried. That what we had was good preciselybecauseit existed in a bubble. No expectations. No pressure. No promises I couldn’t keep.
The bucket list had always had an end point. That was the deal—help her check off her items, give her the experiences she wanted, and then…what? Go back to being just friends? Pretend none of it had ever happened?
My stomach knotted at the thought.
But maybe that was the right call. Maybe once we finished the list, we could both walk away clean. She’d have her confidence, her experiences, and her proof that she wasn’t boring—far fucking from it.
And I’d have the knowledge that I hadn’t ruined her.
That I hadn’t broken her the way my father broke my mother.
Drew would never have to know. The friendship would stay intact. Everyone would win.
So why did the thought of it make me want to put my fist through a wall?
I lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
Be careful.
Yeah. Careful was exactly what I needed to be.
Because I was starting to realize that maybe the person whose heart was going to get broken wasn’t Ava’s, but mine.
THIRTY-FOUR
Seeley Days had always been one of my favorite events growing up in Meadowbrook. It was a two-day event where they shut down Main Street and set up games and food vendors from all over. There were bands and performers scheduled every hour in the park, including the dancers from the dance school I worked at. Tours of the Seeley Mansion ran all day long, and the whole event culminated with a fancy gala dinner and auction held at the mansion.
As a kid, it meant funnel cake and face painting and staying up past my bedtime to watch the fireworks from my dad’s shoulders. As a teenager, we’d sneak away from our parents to hang out with our friends, and sometimes get into a little bit of trouble.
Drew and I had our first taste of beer at Seeley Days—stolen from Colton Hughes’s older brother’s cooler while he’d been talking to a customer at his food stand. It had tasted terrible, but Drew had acted like he liked it so I’d swallowed mine out of pure stubbornness.
But I’d never experienced Seeley Days from this angle before. The behind-the-scenes, make-sure-nothing-catches-fire, why-is-the-band-setup-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-park angle.
Deirdre had left me a binder with color-coded tabs and a hand-drawn map of every vendor location, performance time, and electrical outlet in town, as well as all the businesses along Main Street who would help with setup, takedown, and other responsibilities they’d agreed to. The woman was terrifyingly organized, and I had never been more grateful for another human being in my life.
But I was also convinced she needed a raise.
Because while everything was organized, I also felt like a chicken with my head cut off while I was supposed to be herding cats and teaching monkeys how to dance.
With every second that passed, I questioned why I’d ever agreed to take this on.
By eight a.m. on the first day, I was already at the mansion with a clipboard in one hand and an iced coffee in the other that I was pretty sure would need to be refilled at least twice before noon. I’d already fielded six phone calls, redirected a volunteer crew who’d started setting up vendor tables on the wrong side of the park, and talked the kettle corn guy off a ledge when he couldn’t find his assigned electrical outlet.
“Miss Ava, Freddy says he needs a bigger space than what’s marked on the map.”
I turned to find Peggy Lawson, who was seventy-two years old, four feet eleven, and the most efficient volunteer I’d ever worked with, looking at me expectantly. Freddy ran the funnel cake stand.
“Tell him he gets the same ten-by-ten as everyone else. If he needs more room, he should’ve requested it when Deirdre sent out the vendor packets in June.”
Peggy grinned. “That’s exactly what I told him. Justwanted to hear you say it.” She marched off with the energy of a woman half her age.
Shortly after she walked away, two vendors showed up claiming the same spot, which I resolved by pulling out Deirdre’s binder and pointing to the assignment sheet, and one of them backed down just as Liam’s truck pulled into the gravel parking lot next to the mansion.
He climbed out in a faded gray T-shirt and jeans, sunglasses pushed up on his head, his gaze already hot on me. The grin that spread across his face when our eyes met made my pulse stutter.
